y low and inarticulate) mutters that he
"unites."

[We knocked up Boylett, Berry, and John so frightfully yesterday, by
tearing the room to pieces and altogether reversing it, as late as four
o'clock, that we gave them a supper last night. They shine all over
to-day, as if it had been entirely composed of grease.]

Ever, my dearest Mamie,
Your most affectionate Father.

[Sidenote: Miss Hogarth.]

WOLVERHAMPTON, _Wednesday, Nov. 3rd, 1858._

Little Leamington came out in the most amazing manner yesterday--turned
away hundreds upon hundreds of people. They are represented as the
dullest and worst of audiences. I found them very good indeed, even in
the morning.

There awaited me at the hotel, a letter from the Rev. Mr. Young,
Wentworth Watson's tutor, saying that Mrs. Watson wished her boy to
shake hands with me, and that he would bring him in the evening. I
expected him at the hotel before the readings. But he did not come. He
spoke to John about it in the room at night. The crowd and confusion,
however, were very great, and I saw nothing of him. In his letter he
said that Mrs. Watson was at Paris on her way home, and would be at
Brighton at the end of this week. I suppose I shall see her there at the
end of next week.

We find a let of two hundred stalls here, which is very large for this
place. The evening being fine too, and blue being to be seen in the sky
beyond the smoke, we expect to have a very full hall. Tell Mamey and
Katey that if they had been with us on the railway to-day between
Leamington and this place, they would have seen (though it is only an
hour and ten minutes by the express) fires and smoke indeed. We came
through a part of the Black Country that you know, and it looked at its
blackest. All the furnaces seemed in full blast, and all the coal-pits
to be working.

It is market-day here, and the ironmasters are standing out in the
street (where they always hold high change), making such an iron hum and
buzz, that they confuse me horribly. In addition, there is a bellman
announcing something--not the readings, I beg to say--and there is an
excavation being made in the centre of the open place, for a statue, or
a pump, or a lamp-post, or something or other, round which all the
Wolverhampton boys are yelling and struggling.

And here is Arthur, begging to have dinner at half-past three instead of
fo